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Christine and the Queens to curate Meltdown 2023

The French singer will invite artists who have shaped his musical identity to perform at London's Southbank Centre from 9-18 June next year

By James Hanley on 22 Nov 2022

Christine and the Queens


image © Pierre-Ange Carlotti

French singer-songwriter Christine and the Queens has been announced as the curator of Southbank Centre’s 2023 Meltdown Festival.

The 34-year-old, who will become the youngest curator in the music, arts and culture festival’s history, will invite artists who have shaped his musical identity to perform on the stages of the Royal Festival Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall and Purcell Room in London from 9-18 June next year. The first confirmed names will be revealed in the spring.

Christine and the Queens will make his debut at the Southbank Centre tonight, having sold out the Royal Festival Hall for a one-off special as his new, experimental persona, Redcar. The show will see him perform his new album, Redcar les adorables étoiles, in the first instalment in a series of new projects slated for 2023.

“We are incredibly excited to be working with such an ambitious artist”

“Chris will be the youngest-ever curator of Meltdown in its 27-year history, an incredible testament to his international pop prowess,” says Adem Holness, head of contemporary music at the Southbank Centre. “We are incredibly excited to be working with such an ambitious artist who, I am sure, will show us all what more Meltdown can be as a festival and a celebration.”

This year’s Meltdown was curated by Grace Jones, who delivered the second highest grossing edition of the festival after The Cure’s Robert Smith in 2018. Other artists to have curated the festival include David Bowie, Yoko Ono, Patti Smith, Nick Cave, Lee Scratch Perry and Jarvis Cocker.

“Meltdown not only allows us to understand the passions of an artist, but uniquely to see them come to life as a fully-formed festival across the Southbank,” adds Southbank Centre artistic director Mark Ball. “And to get inside Chris’s imagination – an artist whose ideas and inspiration comes from his politics, his history and identity, his love of theatricality and of transgressive underground culture – will be an incredible musical treat for audiences.”

 


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